The case involved the July 31 incident in which a 16-year-old was shot to death when he attempted to rob a man near the World War I monument at Summit Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard in St. Paul.

Nautica Cox was charged with accompanying the would-be robber Lavauntai Broadbent earlier that day. Cox was not with Broadbent when his robbery attempt resulted his own death.

Cox, who made his plea in Ramsey County Juvenile and Family Justice Center, was not certified to adult court as the state initially sought. Instead, he will have a 50-month adult prison sentence hanging over him as he completes the terms of his juvenile sentence.

That sentence will be determined in Hennepin County Court because he lives in Robbinsdale.

After pleading guilty, Cox testified that on the evening of July 30 and into the early hours of July 31 he was with four friends: Lavauntai Broadbent, 16, of West St. Paul; Donte Edward Foster, 16, of Woodbury; Kendell Anthony Lewis, 16, of St. Paul; and Malcolm James Devion Golden, 17, of St. Paul.

Cox said he was picked up in the stolen car, along with Broadbent and Golden. Foster was driving and Lewis was in the front seat when he and the two others got in the back seat, he said.

Cox was told the car was stolen and that there were two loaded guns in the car, he testified Wednesday. Yet he remained in the car, he said.

And when Broadbent got out of the car wearing a ski mask to rob a man at gunpoint, Cox came along as a lookout, he testified.

The group dropped Cox off at some point later on July 31. Then they drove to area of the World War I monument at Summit Avenue and Mississippi River Boulevard, where Broadbent tried to rob another man at gunpoint.

But the would-be victim pulled out his own weapon and fatally shot Broadbent. The county attorney’s office declined to file charges against the man.

Shalonda Fisher, Cox’s mother, described him as a good kid after Wednesday’s hearing. He played football and basketball and “can do algebra in his head,” she said of the high school junior.

But she added that he was with the wrong crowd and felt peer pressure when he went joyriding in a stolen car and helped a friend rob a man at gunpoint.

“Nautica was not raised like this,” Shalonda Fisher said of her son.

Cox and Broadbent were cousins, Fisher said.

“Him and Lavauntai grew up together,” Fisher said. “They were just hanging with the wrong people. Two of the boys we don’t even know.”

Fisher said Cox’s plea is “saving him” from prison.

“He’s a sweet kid. He loves everyone,” she said. “It’s not like he has a criminal history. It’s just like he said — it was peer pressure.”

Cox’s co-defendants’ cases remain pending. The state is seeking to have each of them charged and tried as adults.

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